Teamsters meet with town labor rep over storm grievance

Debra Friedman, STAFF WRITER

Published 9:48 pm, Thursday, April 22, 2010

After filing a grievance with the town alleging some town tradesmen were not called in to help handle the powerful March 13 nor'easter, the union's steward met with town officials this week to iron out the main issues stemming from the complaint.

Roger Taranto, steward of Teamsters Local 456, which represents about 400 tradesmen in public works, parks and other departments, said he met with the town's labor relations director Wednesday and felt the meeting was productive. Taranto said he hopes to avoid going to arbitration.

"We need to get all the facts," Taranto said. "There is a lot of research to do and we will get back together and go from there."

Last week, the Teamsters filed a grievance claiming the town did not have a "clear-cut" process to govern which personnel are called in when a disaster strikes.

Taranto said some union members thought they should have been called in, but were not.

"This was an all hands on deck situation so why were not all hands called," states the grievance. "Attempts were not even made to call some people in."

Taranto said he could not offer specifics on which crews were not called in during the storm because the union was still researching the matter.

The complaint further questions whether the process used to determine who was called in during the storm was "discriminatory" toward some employees.

The grievance seeks the town to pay lost wages to members not called in and for the town to "develop a standard operating procedure so this does not happen again."

Taranto said that after the meeting with Alfred Cava, the town's labor director, the two sides will be compiling time sheets and other information to help determine what guidelines were followed during the storm and if anything needs to change.

Cava said that after he met with Taranto, the issue would require further research before either side could discuss resolving it. If the sides are not able to come to an amicable resolution, the grievance process will head to arbitration.

First Selectman Peter Tesei said last week he believes the town handled the storm appropriately. Tesei said he would be interested to "benchmark" Greenwich's protocol compared to other towns affected by the storm.

After the storm, town department heads said they spent a significant amount of money on overtime and utilized many crews on overtime in the week following the storm.

The March 13 storm left nearly 66 percent of the town's households without power, closed 400 roads and knocked down more than 700 trees. Power company officials said more than 150 utility poles were destroyed.

The slow restoration process frustrated many town residents, who were mainly upset with Connecticut Light & Power, which took up to seven days to fully restore power. The question about whether the town was utilizing overtime arose in the storm's aftermath.

Taranto initially said he believed overtime was utilized, but felt every tradesman should have been brought in to help alleviate the problems created by the storm damage.

Cava said no other unions had filed grievances with the town regarding the March 13 storm.